What Does Deuteronomy 23:4 Mean in the King James?
Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse places withheld bread and water beside a purchased curse: harm appears both in what is denied and in what is deliberately spoken.
THE MEANING
This verse makes visible now how a person can be met: the body receives no bread or water while a curse is deliberately commissioned against them. Material deprivation and hostile speech stand together in one account of how another is treated. The Hebrew verb for “met” carries the sense of coming forward, making the withheld provision a failed encounter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that harm consists only of an overt attack: withholding basic provision and commissioning hostile words are named together.
THE ROOT
קִדְּמוּךָ
qiddemukha
GROWS FROM
קדם
Come before, go ahead, meet, encounter.
English “met” can sound like simple contact, while this Hebrew verb carries the sense of coming forward to encounter someone. Here, the failure to provide food and water is a failure to come forward with what the traveler needs.
ALSO GROWS
qadam: To come before, precede, or meet.
קָדַם
The verb preserves the image of going ahead to encounter someone.
qedem: The front, the east, or former times.
קֶדֶם
This branch shares the sense of what is in front or comes before, giving “met” a shade of stepping forward.
שָׂכַר
sakhar
GROWS FROM
שכר
Hire or pay wages.
“hired” in this verse is sakhar. The root keeps the paid arrangement audible: this curse is commissioned as a service. The verse places that deliberate use of speech beside the absence of bread and water.
ALSO GROWS
sakhar: Wages or reward.
שָׂכָר
This noun makes the payment behind the act of hiring visible in the same word family.
sakhir: A hired worker or hireling.
שָׂכִיר
The hired person is another branch of the root that describes the paid service.
לְקַלְלֶךָ
leqalelkha
GROWS FROM
קלל
Be light; make light of; treat as contemptible; curse.
The root also carries the sense of lightness or making light, so “curse” belongs to a word family that can express treating someone as diminished or contemptible. Here, that speech is hired and directed against a people.
ALSO GROWS
qalal: To be light, make light of, or curse.
קָלַל
The verb shows the shared root behind the act of cursing and the sense of making light of someone.
qelalah: A curse or imprecation.
קְלָלָה
This noun carries the same root into the curse itself, connecting the spoken act to the condition named.
THE PATTERN
How people are received is made visible both in the provision offered to the body and in the words directed at them.
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.THE THREAD
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.“Curse” in this verse and “curseth” in Genesis share the Hebrew root קלל (qalal). Genesis places that speech alongside blessing, opening the hired curse here as one form of words directed over another’s life.
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